Like this:

Last 3 months, no proper diet .. eating all crap again… no running/sprinting either; pressed for time working on my first game release (http://facebook.com/HungryBaka) and with over little more than 3-4 hrs max sleep everyday has taken a super toll on my health.

Asthma is back in life!
4 days back I was completely down, unable to move.. hands trembled, unable to breath either (as if breathing last breaths .. this happened 2 yrs ago once).

Depending on inhaler…not good.

Life went from using pills to puffing on Asthaline in 4 days.
Living alone makes it worse, that lonely feeling, that emptiness and staring at blank walls, and no one to talk to…. but I guess this is still is better than living with anyone who back-stabs you.

It is immensely painful both emotionally and physically, but if this is what it takes to ride the path I chose in life.. then so be it.
Bring it on; It’s a Do or Die bitch.

We @toonheart love Game Jams … and we’ve done LudumDare Compo and Jam’s earlier, but this is the first time we are in for the NGDC’s Indian GameJam.
It’s a 48 + 18 hr jam ( First 6 hrs to come up with a game idea/design, then next 48 for the development, and last 12 for packaging or nitty gritty stuff)

I’m gonna keep blogging about our participation and progress on this post.

Themes were announced at 1800 today,

Top 3 themes being “Last Man on Earth”, “Loop” and “Keys”. 🙂
One would expect that we’re supposed to use one or more from the top 3, but there was a surprise.. and a nasty one 🙂 … “We’re supposed to use one theme from top 3, and one theme from bottom 3 and combine them into a game”

So what are the bottom 3 voted themes: “Lies”, “Mine” and “Synesthesia”!

The hell! 😀

Let’s get to the time line:

Before 1800 hrs – Running around to get inverter installed and wiring done. Crazy electricians testing my patience out.
Adding more frustration before the gamejam… besides not allowing me to get time to rest before the jam. Darn it.

1800 hrs – Still shopping for Energy Drinks stock for the jam.

1900 hrs – Team has assembled (Ramesh, Gautham and me), yet I didnt want to take a look at the themes. I wanted some peace first.. to calm down, to be able to create.
Drove to this huge bridge where I often come for peace… watching down on the cars of long highway fly by and endless horizon.
Stood there with team in drizzling rain for some time and headed back home to rock the Jam.

Need peace to Create.

1930 hrs – On the way back, stopped to pack up dinner for us, get a dose of Irani chai to cure headache and get a different environment to think about the game ideas. We’ve seen the themes now. Everyone around is going bonkers on why we are talking about destruction and bombs and explosions.
It’s for our game silly 🙂

Crazy gameDevs confusing people in Cafes 🙂

1945 hrs – Heading home, we found a dog drenching in rain. It didnt look like a street dog. It was injured.. definitely didnt know how to survive in rain and was on the verge of being attacked by street dogs (was getting surrounded). We rushed and shooed away the territorial attackers and somehow managed to board him in the car and bring him home 🙂

It’s a bit of concentration breaker from the gamejam because its craving attention and needs a bit of care right now, but I couldn’t convince myself to leave it in rain.
Doesn’t want to stay in balcony… wants to be around people. So here at our work area.. we have it watching us build games 🙂

4th member of the team right now 🙂

2000 hrs – We’re home dumping all our special food stock for the jam.. churning out ideas on the game, working out design… all while trying to make the canine sit at a place… he just wants to hug 🙂

Why BYOG is fun at @toonheart 🙂

2300 hrs – Done with deciding the game idea… roughly a design too. Made a task list for each member according to his skill (Ramesh takes programming, Gautham takes Art, I take bit of everything including sounds, art direction and gameplay/gamedesign) and started this blog 🙂

Meanwhile, due to heavy rains.. our awesome power department has decided to do an outage … and luckily we’re just running on the new inverter (timely save). However, I had to move from WiFi to using slow Dongle for internet. Sigh.

2327 hrs – Announcing our game, we chose themes “Last Man on Earth” from top3 and “Lies” from Bottom 3.
I’d like to hold off on revealing the game name and the gameplay for a bit. 🙂
Currently, rats are marching our stomach’s a.k.a super hungry… and we’re gonna grab on some tasty biryani and Paya before we start the code.

0258 hrs – So we transitioned into next day now. Almost 9 hrs into the 64 hr jam.
The game’s code has come up a bit with sprites being used from stock images for the moment. Basic user inputs and movements is done. Art side is a bit challenging right now. We are discarding more stuff or rather I should say I am discarding more stuff and poor artist Gautham is struggling to get the sprites the way it should fit in.

0753 hrs – Main character design is done. Some ground tiles are done.
Basic story progression in gameplay is roughly done.

1008 hrs – After a refreshing walk and breakfast.. we’re back for the grind.
Gautham moved on to other game characters (we decided to do animations later), and I moved on with more stage sprites/environment. Currently bombarding Ramesh with all images to replace those rectangles and stock images we have been using. Honestly, still a ton ton ton of work left. Yikes!

Couple of energy drinks are down… oh btw, here’s a teaser 😉

First teaser 🙂

1024 hrs – Ramesh’s laptop has overhead Shut it down for cooldown.
This is OUCH!
I decided to open and clean it up. From Game Designer to laptop cleaner in matter of minutes. How career changes 🙂

Hot laptops during Game Jams 😦

1230 hrs – We breaked off for a small game of Street Fighter x Tekken on xbox.
I went on to take a small nap. Much needed.

0530 hrs – Completely forgot about our lunch… well with all that continuous snack we were feeding ourselves :P.
Anyway, we broke out again for Irani tea and light lunch, besides using the bridge again for some peace time to rejuvenate our minds.

Ramesh and Gautham look away – camera shy 🙂

Awesome timing of the snap.. the cloud is so beautiful.

0034 hrs – Another day start, Ramesh and Gautham are off to a small nap.
I finished world particles, Gautham did quite some artwork and Ramesh chopped off quite a bit of code with those dummy sprites with replacing them with completed artwork every now and then.
Doggie has learned to sit on my work desk (Japanese dining table height) and is warming its butt on my devices. Sigh!
Now, I’d be working on putting the world environment together.

Btw, here’s another teaser image to keep ya interested. 🙂

Teaser2 of our NASSCOM BYOG game 🙂

0111 hrs – Just wondering if anyone else is taking rest?
I’ve had 3 hrs of sleep in last 39 hrs. My team has had only 30 mins of sleep yet..they’ll probably wake up in another 3 hrs and continue.
I think these power naps are definitely very important.

0330 hrs – I’m literally on eyedrops, nasal drops and Energydrink for my eyes, nose and activeness…. strictly in that order. Still working on my Nexus 7 … yup yup using it as a drawing tablet for game art.

0530 hrs – Finished making all particles art for the world and splitting them to sprites for use. Now to populate the world.
But first, the dog keeps howling… took it for a walk.

0545 hrs – Too exhausted. Will take a small nap.

0630 hrs – Arrrrghh…. woke up to find poop all over the hall and drawing room 😦
All I needed this morning in between the #ngdc #byog was the remove dog poop and clean mop the whole floor….as if the frustration from the game jam isnt enough! Darn it. :X

1330 hrs – Good amount of progress so far, game design is changing gradually.. but honestly I think we’ll have to limit it a bit to be able to finish the game…. We’re heading out for lunch.
Meanwhile, here’s another teaser to keep you interested.

A teaser of the world 🙂

1946 hrs – 49.75 hrs into the 64 hr jam now.
Going strong on work… weak on body. My back has taken intensive hit… currently counting on the hot water bag to help ease pain … and the 7th can of energy drink is in progress.
I finished creating the world roughly… will fine tune it later.
Meanwhile, Ramesh is strangling the shit out of code.. and Gautham is pulling his head hair to match the art to how I describe the game.

Good thing is, he was supposed to leave by 1900.. but he decided to stay back and jam it all the way till the end of submission time. Thankfully for me it means it takes off a lot of artwork load from my shoulders.. and can give me time to do some sounds and music. 🙂

Here’s another sneak peak to depict what’s coming 🙂

Teaser #4: Huge Cherries on Mango Tree?Happens only @Toonheart 🙂

To be Continued…

Ah here I revisit this blog post again, pretty much crashed to sleep after the BYOG, then got busy with work and couldn’t complete it 🙂

Long story short, we made the game called “The Perfect World”. It is an Environmental Awareness game 🙂

The Perfect WorldAn Environmental Awareness game by ‘Toonheart Studios’

An open world RPG , playing a scientist who thinks world is too slow for him. He invents a time machine and warps into future where he feels it could be perfect for his level of intellect.

Instead, he finds himself ALONE, LAST MAN STANDING on an earth destroyed due to industrialization, toxic waste and human causes.

How much destruction are we causing on Earth?

All his beliefs about how only technology can make life better proves to be a LIE that humans tell themselves.

His time machine is destroyed unable to hand time warp… he must find tools by exploring the earth to repair his ship and be back to the timeline where he is not alone and Earth is still beautiful and green.

We made this game as a tribute to the big blue, the beautiful mother Earth which we are destroying at a rapid rate on the name of mankind progress.

Statutory Warning: Game is buggy as it can be. Gamer may experience slight or heavy attacks of rage playing it 🙂

Update: Selected as Top 10 finalist
We got selected as top 10 finalist by NASSCOM in the gamejam and we’re going to showcase this game at NGDC (NASSCOM Game developers Conference) in Pune on 15-16 Nov 2013 🙂

11. Don’t walk out of the house and go live in someone’s house who might have sexually abused you in the past.

12. Dont’ go and make friends with the boys/men/girls/woman who tried flirting with you and whom he/she was trying to fend away.

13. Don’t go and live with people who were responsible for the fight in the first place (by means of talking behind backs and using reverse psychology.. which is very common used by parents on their children and elder siblings on their younger)
And specially don’t use them as a wall of protection if he/she wants to talk to you after a fight.
It only means that you trust his/her backstabbers more than you trust him.

14. Don’t insult him/her with ‘words’ that he specifically worked hard in a relationship to ‘not hear’ in life. Like
a. “So you think I am your maid” (when he specifically tried a ton of times to make you not do the household work and get you interested in doing something you like or on your career… but you first chose to be a household work horse against his will and then dump the blame on him)

b. “You’re parents are/were so poor” … which has nothing to do with you. Unless he is making you pay for their stuff.
And if he ain’t, and especially if he is taking care of you and ensuring that you don’t spend a dime on the anything (either because you can’t, or because deep inside you dont want to, or because he knows some women can only blow a trumpet of wanting to be independent… but they want man to pay the bills always) .. then the bank balance of his parents is none of your concern.
He is taking care of your livelihood.. if anything, then his bank balance should matter to you if he cannot feed you. (not his parents wealth status)

Trust me, not everyone is lucky enough to find a good person.
So, putting time and effort to get into a relation with a person (probability of whom turning out to be a bitch/dog/backstabber is high; really high) is pure “time waste”, while you could be changing / contributing good to the world.
— from personal experience.

I am approaching 30 soon (say 4 yrs more) and I really feel horrible/like crying about not doing the things I could have done in last decade (excluding last year) instead of the time and effort I put in trying to build a relationship with someone.

You may feel that connection is strong, but you will never know that for the other person it could be super weak and you could just be a lowest priority.
So anyone could simply wreck your relationship anytime they want.

That blog post is good enough for people who think life is about
school->work->findmate->havekids->makethemhavekids->then die.

For some of us, life means different. It means creating something awesome, or improvising or gaining more knowledge. Part of it is finding a good mate to live life with, which sometimes proves to be more harmful and peace destroying than making you happy.
Doesn’t mean you go hammer all your 20s trying to get a relationship right (I’ve done that for a decade and I know how the boat sinks.. and it does very badly).

August 24, 2013

Today, or infact right this moment I sank into a deep feeling of doodling/drawing up a certain figure.
A portrait to be precise, of a girl, holding a big blue-white dolphin plush toy, head tilted 30 deg to right and smiling.

Then an inner voice creeps from behind and asks me “Why”?
And in a flash runs me scenes of pain from past. Also runs me all possibilities/combinations of what could be happening far far away; without me, and with others.

I smash the pencil to the wall and tear up the paper.

He is right.

On a sidenote, I should be really thankful for the personality split.. took me sometime to realize that it happened.. I tried to deny it first…but giving in is more peaceful.
It helps so much.. and so much so that it avoids me from going crazy to end it all.

My bike ‘Amitiel’ was close to being 1..
and my mom’s birthday was near too.

Infact, on same date.

Thought it would be a nice adventure to go visit my mom.
It had to be a surprise.. so she didn’t know I was coming. If she did then well… this log wouldn’t exist 😛
Only 1 problem – She lives 3 states across .. 1800+ kms.

Hmm… is that a challenge?
A very few people knew that I was going to do this. Some of them called me Crazy! May be I am 🙂

I’ll try to keep it small 🙂 .. I know I have the bad habit of writing huge paragraphs and paragraphs of lord knows what I write 🙂 And I’ll write this in parts, for legibility and time constrains and to maintain flow of the journey.

So let’s start with the trip map…. or the one that was initially planned at-least 😀

Note, that the ‘places to visit’ is split between ‘onward’ and ‘return’ journey on same path.

Map Section 1 :

Map split part 1

Map Section 2 :

Map split part 2

Map Section 3:

Map split part 3

Oh well, that was THE PLAN, but execution had something else in mind for me 🙂

I’d like to thank ‘ravi@17bhp’ and ‘jaijeet’ for the gifts (bungee cords).. they were immensely helpful.

One would think, that there would be trouble “during” the journey… but troubles started in a funny way for me even before it 🙂

1. Losing my balaclava: Maid had hung it on terrace after wash and someone thought it’s cool to just take it. Had to do a last moment run to get one more.

New M1 balaclava.

2. Packing Up: Oh darn darn darn… this thing is so tough.
Somehow managed to dump and push all my stuff learning from this guy. And the bag was pretty much tight by then.

Packing Up

So what seems to be the problem? The problem! is that after packing I remember that I have gifts for my mom and my cousin that I brought from Singapore.. there is no way I’m going without that!
To give you a perspective, that’s 3 ladies handbags (2 big sized and 1 medium) Yikes!

I did not give up.. with all the training from my home hung boxing bag.. I punched those bags inside my tail bag .. somehow. 😛

Phew! packed up…. Oh wait… gifts not packed yet 😦

And that’s it… I was ready to go 🙂
More write up coming soon… meanwhile I hope you enjoy this preview video 😀